Adopted by an increasing number of organizations around the world, the ISO 9000 standards have become a growing concern for more and more managers who are often compelled to adopt this system without really knowing its requirements and implications for employees. Though the effects of this standard on quality management and on performance improvement have been widely debated, there is little kn...

Companies that are according to ISO 9000 standards have to maintain a set of documents describing the quality system that include policies, procedures and instructions to assure the final product’s conformance with ISO 9000 requirements. Each change to be introduced in the certified process has to be first written down in the respective documents that are affected by this changes and employees ...

s Six Sigma a fad that has now run its course? If you have been around long enough to have experienced Philip Crosby’s zero defects and quality is free approach, Armand Feigenbaum’s total quality management (TQM), Joseph Juran’s trilogy, W. Edwards Deming’s 14 points, Japanese style TQM, quality circles, Taguchi methods, kaizen, ISO 9000, the Baldrige criteria and now Six Sigma, not to mention ...

Total quality management has proven to be more than just a quickly disappearing management fad or fashion. It has been considered one of the most influential management innovations of the 20 century. TQM is based on a rather naïve and overly rational view of an organization but, without a doubt, it has had a significant influence on contemporary management practices. The ISO 9000 family quality...